A lot has happened in search engine optimization in recent years. Google has changed its algorithm, previously powerful keyword targeting to increase organic traffic has lost its effectiveness and usability, and user-centric content is becoming more important. But it is not easy for common people to understand this development. After all, Google keeps its ranking factors behind closed doors and even Google employees would have trouble tracking updates. But, SEO is not rocket science. With FameNet you have someone on your side who knows the right strategy.

 

Of course, we are happy to share these tricks with you! That is why in this blog post we will show you our top 5 SEO tips, which have proven themselves in the daily work of our agency and always create happy customers.

 

 

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization describes a part of online marketing that is essentially about improving content on your own company's website (on-page optimization) or off-site (off-page optimization). Both forms aim to increase website discoverability through systematic semantic and technical measures.

 

Through SEO, short for search engine optimization (English), companies succeed in improving the ranking of their own sites in search results (SERPs; English search engine results pages) from Google. Remember that your ranking determines how visible you actually are to your (potential) customers. Like most people, Google & Co. Used to start looking for solutions to problems or specifically search for products or services.

 

No. 1: Avoid Soft 404 Errors

We recognize that soft 404 errors don't seem as explosive as 404 pages But looks are deceiving. "404 Not Found" status codes 404 and 410 indicate that the page can no longer be found and consequently will not appear in the SERPs. With soft 404 errors, however, a "200 OK" code is returned. Although the page has not yet been found, it is indexed and displayed in potential search engines

 

Google explains the problem behind this: “A success status code tells the search engine that this URL contains a real page. As a result, the page may be listed in the SERPS, and search engines will continue to try to crawl that non-existent URL instead of spending time crawling your actual pages."

 

So what does this mean for SEO? Status OK codes can negatively affect organic traffic performance. So avoiding soft 404 errors will have a positive impact on your website's visibility

 

But what can you do to avoid soft 404 codings?

 

●     Output status code 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone): If you have indeed removed the page and do not have a replacement page at hand, instruct the search engine with the appropriate status code to stop indexing the page's content.

●     Improve page content and request reindexing: If the page and post still exist, it may be the content that is causing the error message. For example, it could be a bunch of images, scripts, or other non-text-based items that fail to load. You can use the Google URL Inspection Tool to inspect the rendered content and return the HTTP code.

●     Redirect the site and your visitors with a 301 redirect: If your site has moved, use a redirect to direct your users to the new site. This will not interrupt the activity and will notify Google of the new location of your page

●     Prevent indexing with a no-index tag: If you want to keep the page on your website, you can proactively implement non-indexing. However, the soft 404 code remains in the final report.

 

No. 2: Only Allow Websites To Be Crawled Which Are Intended For The Google Index

 

Even without a 404 code, you can decide for yourself which pages to use the crawling budget for. That is, which websites should be included in the search engine index and potentially ranked? Knowing about crawling and indexing processes is very important to practice as they make a fundamental contribution to SEO performance.

 

With targeted crawling management, you control the crawler so that all SEO-relevant websites are crawled as often as possible. These should primarily be pages that offer an entry point from organic search (category pages, landing pages, article pages, etc.). Irrelevant websites for SEO include areas such as shopping carts, which are only available to users after logging in.

 

You have several options to control crawling, which either positively affects the crawler or excludes certain websites from being crawled. An alternative is a sitemap, which you use to chart your domain structure. Thus, the Google crawler reaches all subpages in a maximum of three steps, resulting in better steering of link juice.

 

Tip: Since a sitemap has no direct impact on ranking, it's perfect with Search Console to check the indexing of all relevant URLs.

 

No. 3: Consider Search Intent When Planning Content

You can create the most creative video or text with the greatest suspense. But the quality of the end does not determine the click and conversion rate alone. Instead, be careful to deliver posts that your targets are looking for, which is why knowing search intent is so relevant. But what exactly is the purpose of the search? This means entering a specific keyword into a search engine. The ultimate goal is user intent.

 

Keywords are generally classified into transactional, informational, and navigational. The type of search query is closely related to this. Here, a distinction is made between an interaction (make a request), one aimed at a purchase (buy request), which leads the user to a location (go to request), and information collection requests (learn requests). Focus on search intent when creating content and address potential customers more successfully in the future.

 

No. 4: Content Remains King

Money is made of stuff, Bill Gates assessed in 1996 and was right. Anyone who wants to succeed on the Internet and find themselves at the top of the search engine rankings knows about "content" assets. It decisively determines ranking success.

 

But be careful: even when we talk about content in the context of search engine optimization, it's not just for Google & Co. It is much more important that you score with your target group and this is achieved through added value. When content provides added value to your audience, it helps them learn something new, find solutions to their problems, or otherwise enrich them with information.

 

 

Why is that so important? An added benefit is proving expertise, which builds trust and increases awareness and interaction on the website. Then if you manage to take all the SEO factors into consideration, nothing stands in the way of good rankings. After all, there is little difference between what we humans consider a good contribution and what a search engine does.

 

No. 5: Pay Attention To The Loading Time!

We all hate it when things don't go through at checkout, but the barrier threshold is great for properly abandoning the entire shopping cart. So we wait. The situation is different when users access a website with long loading times. User experience is disastrous and so is their bounce rate. On top of that, Google officially describes loading speed as one of the most important ranking factors. Therefore, as in sports, always return to the fastest horse.

 

So what to do now?

 

Get rid of elements that slow down your website and provide no relevant benefits to the user. This includes, for example, WordPress plugins that are not used.

Compress your images. You do not need the required data size to post. Of course, you still need to pay attention to quality.

Let your webmaster clean up the source code. Every extra space drains your website's performance.

If you want to go deeper, you and your marketing team should consider external backlinks (link building), major keyword research, and SEO optimization of your entire content.